My Job Is To Get Good Pictures

One of the things I love about being a wedding photographer is that I have the freedom to give my clients (the bride and groom) lots of photographs.  Most of my "packages" include at least 400 pictures. They get to see such a wide variety that all my favorites are included.  I know that the best of the best images are going to be seen.


Early in my photojournalism career, one of my frustrations was that I sent my clients (newspapers and magazines) a lot of good pictures and they would only have room to publish one of them.  And, sometimes, the one they ran with wasn't my favorite, or even close.  It didn't take long for me to realize that my job was to get good pictures, what the publications did with them was their business and I had no control over it.  That's not to say that I wouldn't passionately advocate for the picture I thought worked the best, I did.  But the reality in the world of journalism is that the best images don't always show up in print.  There are many factors that go into what ends up being published.  The quality of the image isn't always at the top of the list. I have a lot of friends who are great photographers, but you wouldn't know it if all you saw was what ran in the paper they worked for.


In the case of the pictures in this post, it's less about the paper running the wrong photos and more about there being a number of good pictures that they just didn't have room for.  But, the beauty of the internet is that I can put them out there to be seen.  These are from a story I did last fall for The New York Times Travel section on hiking the Wonderland Trail at Mt. Rainier.  They did a good job of running the photos - even ran one across two pages inside, bigger than I would have dreamed.
(Here's the link to the story as it ran online: http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/travel/04wonderland.html ) It was fun to shoot, fun to see my pictures run well and even more fun to be able to add a few to the mix with this post.

     

Red Light, Green Light

There are thousands of books written about the technique involved in how to take a particular photograph.  And there are hundreds of workshops given every year by photographers explaining how they do what they do.  But I've found that the best way to get good pictures is to be observant and have the right lens on my camera.  That may seem simple, but it's really true.  Great pictures aren't made, they are found (unless you are a studio photographer, of course!)


In this instance, I was sitting in my car at a stoplight in Marietta, Georgia.  It was 1980 and I had just graduated college and was working for a small daily paper.  I was on my way to an assignment and had to go through the town square to get there.  I had noticed Tommy's Deli and their throw-back looking sign a few times in passing.  As I sat, waiting for the light to turn green, I looked over and saw these two gentlemen talking and sharing a laugh.  I didn't have long to shoot as the light was about to change and there were cars behind me.  I grabbed my camera - which luckily had a long lens on it - and shot a few frames.


It's now 30 years later and this remains one of my favorite photographs.  It's not because I shot it while sitting in my car, but rather because it has always symbolized racial harmony to me.  Marietta, Georgia is a southern town with a racial history that hasn't always been kind.  But to see these two men, enjoying a laugh and sharing a human moment, continues to give me hope that one day, the world might be able to find what they have.  Sometimes getting stopped at a red light is worth the wait.

Sometimes I'm Just Lucky

Luck has been defined as preparation meeting opportunity.  Sometimes it's just being in the right place at the right time.  In the case of the photo here of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich,it's more like being told to be in the right place at the right time.

It was April of 1992 and Rep. Gingrich was raising issues that called into question the abuse of power of many of his colleagues in the US House of Representatives.   Not long after he made his accusations that pointed to corruption on the part of others, it was disclosed that he had also been implicated in a few of those questionable practices.  You might say it turned out to be a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, as my mother used to say.

One of the issues he had shed light on was the abuse of checking accounts at the House bank by members of Congress. It turned out that he was also involved in abusing his account there by  bouncing 22 checks.  The day the news broke about Rep. Gingrich, he was at a local high school in the suburb he represented just outside of Atlanta.  The reporter for the New York Times and I went to the high school to get a comment from him.  When we arrived, the school principal told us that Rep. Gingrich was speaking to an assembly and instructed us to wait in the lobby.  As we headed to the area we were told to go to, my eyes lit up.  The high school nickname was the "Raiders" and the image of their mascot painted on the wall of where we were to meet Rep. Gingrich couldn't have been better to tell the story if I had ordered it up.  As you can see from the picture that ran on the front page of The New York Times the next day, lady luck was shining on me.

Pictures in USA Today

Being able to shoot the occasional assignment for USA Today keeps my finger in the world of photojournalism - a world that I used to be totally immersed in,  from head to toe.  Last week I was given the assignment to shoot pictures that went with a story on the new, growing trend for urban residents to keep goats as both pets and as a source of goat's milk. (I know, where else would you get goat's milk?!)


As you will see over the life of this blog, I love to photograph animals.  Be they big or small, furry or feathered, the animal kingdom always makes for good photos.  For this assignment, I met Naomi and Neil Montacre who own Naomi's Organic Farm Supply in Portland, Oregon. (http://naomisorganic.blogspot.com/2009/03/about.html). They are a wonderful couple who are betting on urbanites who are doing everything possible to produce their own organic food.  From chickens laying eggs to organic fruit trees, they are at the center of supplying this growing trend.  (no pun intended!)


I visited them and their three goats.  It was a wonderful day and the pictures were fun.  Check out the story that ran in USA Today here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2010-03-02-urbangoats_N.htm


And, here is a picture from that day that didn't run in the story.  Bleet, bleet!